The humble blog post continues to be one of the most effective tools in a marketers content arsenal but what length of copy is the best for driving better returns from SEO?

Most experts agree that blogs should be more than 300+ words in length as this gives the writer the ability to answer a question or two and impart some advice that the reader can act upon. However, merely hitting a large word count for the sake of it should not be the aim either as blogs need to be consistently engaging to increase a user’s page time.

While blogs both short and long are excellent options and should be used regularly by brands, research shows that there are certain benefits to posting content with 1,000 words or more.

More words, more traffic, to a point

Higher word counts generally lead to higher amounts of organic traffic on average, though the gains do increase on a gentle curve rather than being substantial jumps. This means there is a moderate positive correlation, which is probably good news for marketers as targeting lengthy editorials for every piece would be exhausting.

As ever, doing everything in moderation is key. You can mix in some simpler 300 word blogs with larger 1,000 or 2,000 word pieces and everything else in between to deliver results. Google is generally biased towards longer content as it usually satiates a user’s desire for a query to be answered comprehensively but this is not always the case.

Research does show that there is a steep drop off in organic traffic when posts go on for longer than 2,000 words, which means all the effort put into a 10,000 word piece is likely to be wasted as it won’t perform as well as a much shorter blog.

Be succinct as possible

The max word limit highlights how marketers need to be succinct and to the point. A blog should cover everything that’s important and leave things that are unimportant to one side. Top ranking pages in search generally provide similar coverage for important points that need to be made to answer a search query.

For example, top performers in SERPs for the term “keto diet” often provide a definition of what the diet is and the foods you should eat. You can conduct your own content gap analysis by employing the same methodology for keywords or topics you want to target with blogs. Is there anything that you definitely need to include to compete with others on the first page?

Attempt to cover all of these crucial points and build on them to make your blogs unique. While certain data shows that longer content can work best, The University of Chicago found that a reader’s engagement drops off fast after they have been consuming content for seven minutes. This is another argument for a quick and breezy style.

To conclude, rather than obsessing over word count and always thinking big, you should instead greenlight blogs that can do a topic justice while entertaining and engaging readers consistently.